(De(re))Install: A Trip to Rhode Island

What a whirlwind this week has been! I finished installing the show just in time for Open Studios to begin Saturday and Sunday; had over 300 strangers come traipsing through my apartment, loving it or hating it, respectful or browsing through our personal belongings; cooked an insane amount of food for my reception Sunday evening (I am still eating my way through the leftovers!) and had several friends stop by to chat, check out the  work and deliver some gorgeous flowers; crashed early every night to try and catch up on lost sleep and recover from taxed people skills (thank god for Flour!  If it wasn’t for working there I’m not sure I would have the ability to tactfully deal with all of them!); got up as early as I could force myself Monday morning to take down the big piece and figure out how to transport and more importantly, translate the configuration; loaded it all (including the bed) into a Zipcar, drove to Warren, RI, just outside of Providence, reinstalled the whole thing with 2 foot higher ceilings, cleaned up the disaster we had made of the gallery, and drove back to Boston!!! Then it was back to the jobs Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, with a trip BACK to RI, this time by commuter rail, for the opening reception Thursday night.  AND a 5am commuter rail back to Boston this morning to arrive in time to open the bakery.  All I can say is thank god for Kent, who was key in installing the Paper Jungle way back when, and for Zipcar, even though it cost me an arm and a leg…

We were both on ladders for the full 4 hrs. of reinstallation

We used trace paper on the ceiling to translate the exact locations of all the eye hooks

And numbered each tooth individually to map out which belonged where in the composition

Ellen Blomgren, the gallery owner, tested the view when we were done

At the opening...

Dearest friends Rachel and Nick, visiting from Providence, enjoyed the view together

I still have to share the “nicer“ photos I took of the piece when it was still in my apartment with ALL the lights turned off except the two illuminating the piece from below.  Those will come soon…

Open Studios Success!

I had over 300 visitors over the course of the weekend!  The building received over 700, but I imagine most people got lost and didn’t hit every studio or were scared by the room full of teeth and didn’t bother trying to come in.  Here’s what they missed:

My studio door: Old Arsenal work outside, New teeth work inside

Wall of real and fake teeth specimens

Book of printed Teeth Stories

Wall of Teeth Stories

Overall view of the whole setup

And just for fun…

Larry, Curly and Moe enjoying the view

I also took a ton of photos of the big piece by itself in super dramatic lighting.  I will post those next…

Vestigial Organs: Teeth Stories and Sculptures

Postcard Design

Finally came up with a name for my show!  I submitted the design for my postcards and had to invent a title to put on the cards so there you have it.  I hate making up titles.  Half the time I end up just throwing something random together; sometimes it works, sometimes not so much.  This might be one of those not working times, but the title is slowly growing on me so we’ll see what I think by the time the show rolls around.

Making the postcards meant I had to finally set up my studio corner in the new apartment.  In addition to finishing a few teeth, I had to assemble some sort of photography booth.  I took a few pics of my corner and the crazy contraption I put together for the sake of taking a few nice photos…

My corner studio in the new apartment

And lastly, here was the second favorite postcard photo.  It’s a tiny version what’s to come in the next few weeks and at the show on November 1st.

Postcard Design Reject

Apartment Show

Part of my difficulty with consistently blogging lately has been due to several factors.  One, I moved across the city into a new neighborhood, building and apartment and even though we technically moved in August, we JUST NOW busted all the boxes and finally made the place look decent.  Two, I took on a new role at the Harvard Ceramics Program, which has required a lot more of my attention and energy than I was expecting and I find myself continuously playing catch up with the workload there.  Three, a hefty number of keys on my keyboard are broken and I have to copy and paste way too many letters, numbers and punctuation—as a result, I don’t really like typing much these days.  And four, most of the summer was spent in production mode, pumping out as many teeth as I could manage.  I figured writing about repeating the same process ever day would be about as interesting as watching water boil… so I didn’t…

Now I’m gradually working on pulling all the disparate pieces of my life together and hope it will culminate in a mini one woman show in my new apartment.  The new place is a large one room studio with plenty of space for a bedroom corner, living room corner and work corner in addition to the brand new IKEA built in kitchen and bathroom (with utility sink!).  I’ll be sure to post some photos soon, now that it finally looks like an apartment and not just a box jungle…  Anyways, I will be installing the teeth project in this new home, The Distillery, an all artist building of work studios and live/work spaces.  There are about 60 units in the 170 year old Rum Distillery, half of which are now work spaces for artists, writers and musicians, the other half are live/work apartments.  There are 3 galleries in the building, an urban garden in the parking lot, 2 enormous freight elevators, and a ton of arts resources if you befriend all the right people.  Every year the building hosts 2 open studio events, one of which will fall on Halloween weekend this fall.  This is when I plan on premiering the teeth piece and also hosting my own mini reception in conjunction with open studios.  So mark it on your calendar!  South Boston Open Studios, October 31 and November 1 from noon to 6pm PLUS a reception to celebrate the completion of the piece on Sunday, November 1st, immediately after open studios in my apartment from 6:00 to 8:00pm.  Be there or be square!  Also, if you are not already on my mailing list, or have moved, send me your new info!  I will be mailing postcards to announce the event within the next week and I don’t want to miss anyone!

Post Show & Sale Post

OK, so I lied about getting all caught up on the blogging while visiting my family and friends in Virginia…  In fact, I didn’t even manage to do much of anything AFTER returning from Virginia…  What can I say, I’ve been lazy, unmotivated and uninspired for nearly a month… but now I’m back!!

So lets jump right in with some photos from the Show & Sale…

I chose to do the least you can do: share a bank of shelves with another person

My top shelf was all the framed pieces from Post-Processualism and the middle shelf all teeth

The night before, I experimented with watercolor and wax

And I LOVE the results!! I'm definitely planning on doing more with the wax/watercolor combo

This was a glaze fusion accident that I really like, so I showed a mix of traditionally glazed pieces and waxed/watercolored pieces

In terms of sales, I ended up selling 3 pieces, which to be honest was unbelievably shocking since the show and sale is overwhelmingly dominated by pots and people looking for pots…  I was really planning on just showing them, not actually selling any so to have 3 teeth walk out the door was crazy to me!!  I only sold raw porcelain pieces; since I had just watecolored/waxed them the day before, I wasn’t willing to risk parting with any waxed or glazed ones yet so they were all marked Not For Sale.

Next up, I fnally took some “real” (ish) photographs of all the teeth after the sale so I will post them soon.  In the meantime, a little gem taken at the studio today:

The first successful cast of the largest tooth to date was born today--it's baby-sized!